Sneakily important...
by Dr. Wolfenstein on Oct 13, 2011 11:59 PM CDT
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PrintI know some will say this should be a fanshot, but I think it's important. What is discussed below highlights one of the ways in which the NBA lockout greatly differs from the NFL lockout. The NBA, unlike the NFL, is positioned as more of a global brand - that is, more people follow basketball around the world than do American football. An unspoken subtext of this lockout is precisely what is the status of the NBA as a global league, and where do all the current players fit in that structure (compensation-wise or otherwise)? Is the league truly headed towards trying to be the pre-eminent basketball league in the world? I kind of think so, but I'm not sure exactly what that means for owners or players. At any rate, I think this subtext is extremely important to understanding at least David Stern's interests in the lockout: he wants the NBA to the THE basketball league in the world, the place where the best players, coaches, and athletes showcase the game.
What do you think?
Damage to the NBA brand
A couple days ago on Twitter, David Thorpe asked: "How's it gonna look when NBA players playing overseas get sent home because they are just not worth what they were being paid?"
Since then, DeJuan Blair -- a starter on one of the league's best teams in San Antonio -- was let go by his Russian team.
It's not that Blair didn't play well. His numbers were solid. It's also not that he has a big attitude -- quite the opposite.
The problem appears to have been simply that they could get similar production for less from any number of other players. He was good, but the amount they paid him, in that league, is reserved for greatness.
Thorpe has long maintained that the very best NBA players are in a class by themselves. No other league in the world has players like Dwyane Wade and LeBron James. But after those top stars, whether that's 30 or 40 players, he says it's very hard to tell anyone apart. The non-star NBA players, he says, are interchangeable with professionals all over the globe, which he sees in his own gym every summer, where, for instance, Italian Serie A starters hang comfortably with NBA rotation players.
Meanwhile, consider soccer's English Premiership, which includes some of the most valuable global sports franchises like Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool. Strictly because that league, and those teams, are seen as the best in the world, they are well-positioned to become not just England's favorite teams, but the world's favorite teams. They don't just play London, they play New York and Tokyo, too -- and when they get there they find fans wearing their players' jerseys and chanting their team chants.
Those teams pay like crazy for the most expensive talent in the world, and that talent gives them a shot at developing lucrative global audiences.
The NBA has a similar opportunity. Will sports fans in China, India and Brazil insist on NBA basketball on their televisions? Will they buy expensive official NBA merchandise?
If they are convinced it's far and away the best basketball league in the world they will. But the perception that the NBA is in a class by itself ... it's damaged just a little in Russia today when Blair is sent packing. And it's entirely possible that we'll see more of the same in other countries, which could hurt the NBA's ability to present itself as head-and-shoulders above the rest of the globe.
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Starting off-topic here, but...
Can’t these guys get unemployment now? Hey- 40% of your salary ain’t bad. Except if we all have to pay it via taxes. Hmmm…. sorry- random thought at 2AM.
Good post- interesting just to think where our global economy, and also the NBA might venture to in the future.
Boycotted buying gas when it went above $1 per gallon thinking the government needs to regulate the margins on this necessity. Lasted almost 2 weeks. :0)
I've been thinking...
about the last paragraph a lot; well before you wrote it. I’m glad that it’s not just on my mind.
I can't imagine why anyone
would think this was a fanshot. Nice analysis and good twit editing.
Basketball is basketball. – Oscar Robertson
The interesting piece here is the idea that there are many players capable of producing like those who are the
4th-12th best players on an NBA team. While the Wolves’ experience suggests otherwise (in that they seem incapable of finding guys who are able to do that acceptably), I actually think it’s probably true.
And this creates problems for everyone. It’s very difficult to create a good labor agreement when you attempt to do so by ignoring market forces and real value.
Maximum salaries help owners and lesser players, but fly in the face of the real economics. Paying other guys $5 million a year is nice for them, but again, isn’t a realistic measure of their value. As the piece suggests, there are plenty of players who can do what, say, Francisco Garcia (random) does.
The value, in terms of wins and revenue, of having one of the great players in the league is vast. Consider LeBron James on the Cavs. Go look at their roster in 2008-09, when they won 66 games. Go ahead. I don’t think I need to spell it out, do I?
I’m a big believer in unions as a force for protecting workers. History teaches us what happens when we don’t allow for collective bargaining. It isn’t pretty. But economic realities can’t be entirely flouted. I don’t believe that the league is really losing that much money, but from a allocation standpoint, it’s a mess.
The Wolves are like the worst meal you've ever had--terrible while you're eating it and even worse later.
by Eric in Madison on Oct 14, 2011 9:14 AM CDT reply actions 1 recs
Is there a specific labor law provision
that requires unions to bargain on behalf of all workers? I realize it’s impossible in Billy Hunter’s case to make every player happy (I think he said his goal is 80 percent, whatever that’s worth) but he probably has a legal obligation to represent the interests of the union as a whole.
The allocation is a mess both player-to-player and team-to-team.
He does, yes
A union must represent all members of a bargaining unit.
The Wolves are like the worst meal you've ever had--terrible while you're eating it and even worse later.
by Eric in Madison on Oct 14, 2011 10:24 AM CDT up reply actions
What's even crappier....
….is that the allocation mess isn’t exactly player driven. It’s structurally driven to a certain extent but it also depends on front office personnel not being very good at their jobs. Pay D-Leaguers to fill spots 8-12. Have a more robust relationship with the D-League franchise to develop younger players. If you can’t get a superstar, rotate cap space for draft picks. The allocation owes some of the mess to the way the league is set up. It also owes some of the mess to bad actors.
Yep.
Mistakes abound. And there isn’t anything in the CBA requiring guaranteed contracts. That’s negotiated.
However, if you paid your secondary guys less, someone would get more. That’s the nature of the agreement on BRI. It’s probably Lebron James et. al. who “should” get more, but the maximum salary provisions derail that.
The Wolves are like the worst meal you've ever had--terrible while you're eating it and even worse later.
by Eric in Madison on Oct 14, 2011 10:37 AM CDT up reply actions
It's pretty hard to weed out the bad actors
Hell, even Jerry West signed Brian Cardinal just to spite his owner’s request to use the MLE. You don’t even need a stupid actor. Hell, a lot of the situations where guys are signed to silly contracts are right out of game theory. Since the owners obviously cannot collude with one another, they make less-than-optimal decisions….on top of some of their front office personnel being functionally…well, slow. You’ll have teams like Minny believing they need to overpay just to get someone in the door. This by itself could serve to drive up the market for any player on their radar.
Too bad the owners couldn’t be trusted to continually work with the players union to make sure roster spots are, as a whole, protected but that horrible personnel decisions could be offset by something like a buyout from the escrow fund (awesome idea alert!) or a credit system where teams could put some bad salary into a league-wide pool that would be offset by everybody as some sort of revenue sharing substitute.
I just wonder if they’ll drag this on long enough to serious pyrrhic victory territory. I think that point will come in Feb/March. Then they lose an entire season along with bumping up against the NCAA.
What I'm hung up on
is BRI percentage, and why system issues seem to be (maybe this is being misrepresented, but I’m reading and hearing it from both Stern and Hunter) as important to the players as the money issue.
I would think the players union would be overwhelmingly more concerned with BRI than with the salary cap and contract guarantees.
My bet is that the players....
…benefit from non BRI jussssstttt a little bit and that a drop in BRI has a bit of a buffer in terms of non BRI goodies and a reduced escrow payment. I thought that buffer would get them to 53% (which seems to be where they are wanting to draw the line). I don’t think it gets them to 50%, especially since the owners will simply invent new ways to make it look like they’re loosing money.
I think this is right
Each side has a number. Right now, those numbers aren’t overlapping. What the real financial state of things is, I don’t know, but it isn’t incumbent on either side to agree to the other side’s number.
In response to Andy, I think the system issues for the players (maybe not a true hard cap, but I don’t think the owners really want that anyway), but other issues would be much less pressing if the owners agreed to 53% of BRI.
The Wolves are like the worst meal you've ever had--terrible while you're eating it and even worse later.
by Eric in Madison on Oct 14, 2011 11:13 AM CDT up reply actions
I think BRI is more important
But I do think that the union is very concerned about cap issues that could limit the security of its members. That is, guaranteed money being available. This makes sense; the union is made up of individuals after all, and they have concern for their jobs.
The Wolves are like the worst meal you've ever had--terrible while you're eating it and even worse later.
by Eric in Madison on Oct 14, 2011 11:08 AM CDT up reply actions
How about the salary cap?
Both sides represent that the union is wholly opposed to big changes to the cap structure. It’s pretty easy to see how a hard cap would increase parity without touching player income as a whole. If Superfriends want to team up, they need to pay for it themselves. 99 percent of the union shouldn’t care about that.
It isn't really easy for me to see how a hard cap would increase parity
But even granting that, the union wants guaranteed contracts to be available for more of its membership than just the top players. A hard cap would take that away, by and large, because teams simply would not offer those guarantees in a system that ties their hands as much as a hard cap would.
The Wolves are like the worst meal you've ever had--terrible while you're eating it and even worse later.
by Eric in Madison on Oct 14, 2011 11:18 AM CDT up reply actions
BRI matters overal...
…but how it is split up matters to individuals. So of course they care about both.
But what's the biggest cohort?
It isn’t the superstars. It’s everyone else. They want to protect their income, and that’s what the union is trying to do, right or wrong.
One of the problems unions run into is how to represent the interests of everyone in a bargaining unit. There is a lot of case law about what constitutes a bargaining unit, and when the interests of the individuals are too diverse to constitute such a unit.
In this case, everyone is an NBA player, but clearly, when there is such a gulf in earnings between the minimum guys and the superstars, it’s very difficult.
The Wolves are like the worst meal you've ever had--terrible while you're eating it and even worse later.
by Eric in Madison on Oct 15, 2011 10:10 AM CDT up reply actions
I don't see this as a problem at all
Basketball is a team sport. Why would the most highly paid member of your team ever publicly grouse about presenting a solid union front? The players who criticize the union are unlikely to be the real stars, and much more likely to be the overpaid jerks who didn’t set anything aside for the lockout.
I was on strike for six months in 1976. The newspapers found a few of my coworkers to criticize the union, but they were the same guys who always criticized the union. The highest paid pieceworkers were all solidly behind the union because they knew that their hefty paychecks were the result of earlier strikes.
And that’s talking about strikes, not lockouts. The sports media is clearly turning a corner and getting much more aggressive about pointing out that it is the owners and only the owners who are insisting on cancelling games. Give it another two weeks and David Stern will be the butt of late night talk show monologue jokes.
Basketball is basketball. – Oscar Robertson
Sure
but…it isn’t entirely clear to me what has gone on in the negotiations and within the union, but it appears at least that some of the superstars have been the most aggressive in not giving in—Garnett, Wade, etc. See this ESPN piece
That’s fine. I have no problem with the union standing strong in these negotiations. But it’s much easier for Kevin Garnett to maintain that position than it is for a guy on a minimum contract whose career is in the balance and for whom a year of paychecks makes a real difference.
I’m NOT suggesting that the players cave; I’m more or less on their side. What I’m saying is that this union, this bargaining unit, is extremely diverse economically. It’s very hard for the union to do their best by all of their constituencies, when some are making $20 million, and others are making $600K.
The Wolves are like the worst meal you've ever had--terrible while you're eating it and even worse later.
by Eric in Madison on Oct 15, 2011 2:12 PM CDT up reply actions
That's the thing, though,
unless I’m completely misinterpreting the situation, if the owners get what they want, it will be the the MLE and minimum contract guys hurt the most and the superstar, max contract players hurt the least.
Let’s be honest, with the way that basketball in general and the NBA specifically is set up, the difference between an elite team and a bottom feeder is a superstar.
Because of that, those superstars (Lebron, Durant, Dwight, Rose, etc) are going to get as much money as they want regardless of the cap (hard or otherwise).
Therefore, if there is a hard cap, and as a result, no cap exceptions, the stars will still get their 18+ million dollar contracts, the MLE level guys will fill up the rest of the cap (likely getting less money than the current MLE), and the minimum guys will be out of a job.
4th-12th best players
I think this is probably true, that there are a ton of these players throughout the world. The issue isn’t so much the observation that they’re out there – the issue is that a lot of these guys are the foundations of their teams abroad and rockstars in their home country. An NBA team calling to offer them 5-10 minutes a night here will be rebuffed because they can make plenty of money staying home while playing 20 minutes a night. Does that make sense?
by Dr. Wolfenstein on Oct 14, 2011 10:27 AM CDT up reply actions
Sure, but that's not the point
It isn’t so much that there are players from other countries that could do that, it’s that there are players from everywhere, including the U.S. that could do that. You think Pete Mickeal couldn’t have spent the last few seasons playing in the rotation of an NBA team? A significant part of success is showing up; ie. getting the right opportunity.
The Wolves are like the worst meal you've ever had--terrible while you're eating it and even worse later.
by Eric in Madison on Oct 14, 2011 10:33 AM CDT up reply actions
When we still had KG
I hoped Khalid El-Amin would join the Wolves to play point guard, even if as a backup. I’d guess he could have done it, maybe still could.
basically if you don't have a Max player
as an owner you don’t have a player who essentially subsidizes the rest of your team. The NBA overpays the middle tier players to the point where foreign leagues simply terminate the contracts (example Blair). For NBA teams that don’t have a top tier player to add value, the teams are stuck paying too much to the middle tier and it doesn’t allow them to really profit as a franchise.
Add the jacked up lottery to this and those teams have a reduced chance to even acquire that player. I’m suprised that more discussion hasn’t revolved around scapping the lottery system. That would go a long way to fixing that disparity.
I don’t think it’s the money the players get that is the problem, but rather the messed up way one franchise profits and the others lose through a combination of franchise location, injuries ruining players careers, poor contracts (teams fault that one) and lottery odds.
Revenue sharing can mostly solve the franchise location part, owners can solve their own poor contracts, nothing can be done about injuries and the lottery is totally fixable.
The only way to not punish the teams that have been prevented from getting a star player is ironically to not have max salaries but institute a much higher than historical hard cap. This artificial economic playing field is killing everyone.
"My love for Jerry Kill knows no bounds." - Jeffrick
by TheEvilProfessor on Oct 14, 2011 10:45 AM CDT up reply actions
Superstars and awesome rookies on rookie scales are the most important things in the league. It cannot be repeated enough.
As for the lotto, I think it should be based on the average win percentage over 3-5 (or 2-3…I’m flexible) years. You want to stop tanking? You want to find out what teams really need the help? Give terrible teams the best players. Let them have repeated cracks at it.
Or
make the lotto only amongst the bottom 3 or 5 teams.
But I really like the idea of lotto seeding being spread out over the prior 3 years. I also think the lotto should still be amongst a smaller group of teams. I’ll just say that twice.
by Dr. Wolfenstein on Oct 14, 2011 11:16 AM CDT up reply actions
I agree about the smaller pool of teams
The worst franchises need the best players and I don’t think the lotto does a good enough job of making that happen.
One thing that IS nice about the current system
Is that a good squad can make a nice 5-8 year run. There might be something to be said for that.
by fanslaststand on Oct 14, 2011 12:08 PM CDT up reply actions
Have you heard or read anything
about the age requirement issue? That used to be discussed, but I haven’t seen anything about it in the recent reports.
Nope
I haven’t even bothered to ask. I just want basketball at this point. I’m sure the age bit will be ridiculous and restrictive.
At the rate we're going, I wouldn't be surprised for the owners to give the players that one.
Not that the players really care so much, but it’d be one tiny, tiny way in which they hadn’t given ground.
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
I'm not sure what you mean there.
Do you think a strong majority of fans want the age restriction another year up?
I have the feeling this is one of those “I hate all incumbents…. Except mine” things people say. High School players paid off pretty well high in the NBA lottery. Several of the league’s star players, elite ones, got drafted as sketchy prospects out of High School. Fan bases in places like Minnesota might say how much they’d like a two-year rule now, but ask them about specifics.
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
Yeah, that's what I think.
Lots of young players are ready to be drafted, but not ready to play in the NBA. It’d be nice to lower the number of those guys, while at the same time improving college basketball.
Sorry
I can’t support any rules that “help” college basketball, the biggest plantation system ever. College players get screwed, and if the owners want to “liberate” promising young players straight out of high school, I’m all for it.
Playing college ball is like interning for free, except most interns’ knees aren’t at risk.
I’ve written resumes for college ballers, and if they’re not famous, their college ball background is more of an hindrance than a benefit when it comes to getting a job. Employers aren’t stupid. They know college ballers have tutors and aren’t necessarily learning anything, and that makes it tough on the actual student-athletes who go to classes and practice their asses off.
Yes, I hate the NCAA even more than I hate the owners. College ball should be unconstitutional on the face of it, but as long as there are middle-aged or older men in charge of all sports, this racket will never be fixed.
Basketball is basketball. – Oscar Robertson
That's fine.
The NCAA has its own problems, for sure. I just like watching both levels of play, and increasing the age minimum would make that more enjoyable for each.
Have you read Taylor Branch's article on the NCAA?
by Stop-n-Pop on Oct 16, 2011 10:31 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Wow
That was long enough to justify converting it for reading on my Kindle, but every word was worth the time.
I didn’t think it was possible for me to hate the NCAA more than I already did, but after reading Taylor Branch on the subject, I definitely hate them more than I used to. But I also take heart from those suits working their way through the courts. Nothing would make me happier than seeing the NCAA suddenly forced to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars to former NCAA “student-athletes.”
Owners are to sports like colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
The following could be written about a lot of things these days
Vaccaro’s audience, the members of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, bristled. These were eminent reformers—among them the president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, two former heads of the U.S. Olympic Committee, and several university presidents and chancellors. The Knight Foundation, a nonprofit that takes an interest in college athletics as part of its concern with civic life, had tasked them with saving college sports from runaway commercialism as embodied by the likes of Vaccaro, who, since signing his pioneering shoe contract with Michael Jordan in 1984, had built sponsorship empires successively at Nike, Adidas, and Reebok. Not all the members could hide their scorn for the "sneaker pimp" of schoolyard hustle, who boasted of writing checks for millions to everybody in higher education.
"Why," asked Bryce Jordan, the president emeritus of Penn State, "should a university be an advertising medium for your industry?"
Vaccaro did not blink. "They shouldn’t, sir," he replied. "You sold your souls, and you’re going to continue selling them. You can be very moral and righteous in asking me that question, sir," Vaccaro added with irrepressible good cheer, "but there’s not one of you in this room that’s going to turn down any of our money. You’re going to take it. I can only offer it."
That was chilling
but the worst of it was that I’d never heard that before, and you’d think a news media obsessed with sports would reference that quote on a regular basis.
You would think that, but only if you don’t know our sports media whores writers.
Owners are to sports like a colostomy bag is to a kitchen.
I'm not at all sure that your stance is that of "fans" on this one.
Meanwhile, we’re talking about leaving things at the status quo – not changing the age rules in favor of players’ interests, but rather leaving those rules as-is. They’d hold their ground. You describe that as
Another “fan” issue where players will win.
because, I guess, not losing more ground is a galling “win” at your expense?
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
There are some things that need fixing.
And for the players to retain the broken rules, like the soft cap, guaranteed contracts and the low age requirement (I believe it’s a full two years lower than the NFL’s) that’s a win for them each time they can keep the broken rule that makes the league worse than it should be, but benefits them in some way, or some perceived way.
Each and every one of those "broken" judgments is a pretty shaky assumption.
I don’t think we need to belabor this. You’re siding as completely as possible with the owners, and accepting their explanations for their motives. I think that leaves the central reasons for which they’re doing what they’re doing completely out of sight.
Being indignant with one side of the CBA tussle for having the gall to try to keep things as-is in an area like the age limit…. There are just a whole raft of questionable assumptions there, for me.
’Nuff said.
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
I'm siding with my own hopes for the CBA.
I’d like a league with the best players in the world, playing their hardest, with a system that allows the Minnesota TWolves to be as competitive as possible.
Some of that lines up with player interests. First, they need to be paid well-enough to not form their own league or play overseas. Also, the league should implement big revenue sharing along with BRI cuts.
But the system issues tend to line up a Wolves fans interest with David Stern’s. I doubt that all of the owners see eye-to-eye on the competitive balance issues, but everything Stern says sounds good for Minnesota and smaller markets. If I were a Laker or Knick fan, I’d be all about the union’s position, there.
Also, I’m indignant with both sides for not getting a deal done. I think I’ve made that pretty clear. I’d way rather have basketball to watch than a more-perfect system that requires a lost season or two to put in place. On system issues, though, I recognize how obvious it is that Stern’s ideas are better for the Wolves than the players’.
"Obvious": Eye of the beholder.
For example: In a league with a hard cap and non-guaranteed contracts, how does an owner like James Dolan suffer, or benefit, relative to the Wolves.
I don’t think it’s at all obvious that the Knicks would be less able to use their big market position against small market teams. Not at all. Not “obvious.”
We could both easily get behind revenue sharing. Too bad the owners have explicitly ruled out that being part of the CBA discussion.
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
James Dolan
is the best conterpoint, since he allowed Isiah Thomas to spend away to unprecedented levels and never win any games with those players.
But the teams that are winning the titles and playing in the Finals are mostly in the luxury tax, aren’t they? The Lakers, with the soft cap, can keep Kobe, Odom, Gasol, and Bynum (not to mention other guys who they probably don’t need, but pay anyway.) In a hard cap system, they probably need to decide between Odom and Gasol, or between Gasol and Bynum. One of them has to go to a different team that is under the cap. That very likely could be a team like the Wolves. The Wolves would be better with Gasol, Odom or Bynum than without that player.
I’m not saying that this would turn the Wolves or other terrible teams into good teams, but it would narrow the gap, some. Then when they win a lottery pick or two, they’re adding that nice young player to a veteran ballclub, and maybe they can start winning.
It’s not a perfect correlation or anything, but look at team salaries (this may be skewed some due to recently expired deals) and notice the Top 10 versus Bottom 10. Even if causation isn’t perfect, there seems to be a relationship between money spent and winning.
I’m not arguing that Stern’s system will automatically make the Wolves a contender, or even improve the Wolves at all. I’m just pointing out the obvious fact that it puts them in a better position to do those things. It’s still up to them to make good decisions—just on a more level playing field.
Correlation<>Causality.
But the teams that are winning the titles and playing in the Finals are mostly in the luxury tax, aren’t they?
Don’t you think teams that see a chance to contend become more willing to spend? Our local franchise’s “failed experiment” with Spree and Sammy Cassell, case in point.
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
They usually do, yes.
(Phoenix is an exception.)
I totally get that the causation is somewhat loose. There are a lot of reasons why high payroll teams win more than low payroll teams. I just think that it’s pretty black and white that the players teams choose to keep that put them over the tax threshold would make bad, cheap teams a little bit better. Lamar Odom would make the Kings a better team. Caron Butler would make the Wolves a better team. Ray Allen would make the Wizards a better team.
(There would be some vets, Allen perhaps one of them, that would take a paycut to stay on a contender, but usually I think money talks.)
Right now the system is set up a little bit more like baseball, where the contenders put out the big money, and even make aggressive moves at the trade deadline to improve their rosters, while the lottery teams do the opposite, keeping salary low and flexible, and dumping veteran talent at the deadline. With a harder cap in place, that would happen less often, I think. Maybe it wouldn’t make much difference, I don’t know.
What if the lotto (or straight-up draft order) was based on multiple factors?
Have it weighed by the record of the team from the last 3-5 years, the change in the team’s record over the last two seasons (to determine if the team is trending down or up), and how much the team spent on player salaries last season. The first factor would help ensure the best draft positions go to teams that have been bad for the longest (and thereby show a true dearth of talent). The second factor would work to help teams like Cleveland that lost the best player from a successful team. And the last factor would be designed to help teams that are paying through the nose but putting out a crappy product anyway – think of the Knicks during the Isiah Thomas era, or Cleveland last year. I think the third factor is necessary to prevent teams from being run like the Clippers, and also to help balance out the concentration of young talent throughout the league – playing time is necessary for players to blossom into stars, so allowing a team to hoard untapped potential is antithetical to generating great players. Furthermore, I think the players union would be happy to see the encouragement of spending closer to a new hard cap.
I would probably have the 3-5 year record account for 60% of the weight, the change in record account for 15%, and the spending of the team account for 25%. If the teams were ranked 1-30 in each of the three categories and scored based on their ordinal ranking, the draft order for the 2011 draft would have been (using 3 year data):
1. WAS; 2. SAC; 3. MIN; 4. TOR; 5. DET; 6. NJN; 7. GSW; 8. MIL; 9. LAC; 10. PHI;
11. IND; 12. MEM; 13. UTA; 14. CHA; 15. HOU; 16. NOH; 17. NYK; 18. ATL; 19. PHO; 20. DEN;
21. OKC; 22. DAL; 23. CLE; 24. ORL; 25. POR; 26. LAL; 27. BOS; 28. MIA; 29. SAS; 30. CHI.
I feel like most of that order is defensible from a parity creation standpoint. Also, I like how it would make getting a draft pick from a perpetually bad team in exchange for your best player significantly more valuable than it is in the current system (where the addition of one good player can make a 10 slot difference in the draft order).
Toddler Riley Scientist
The thing I drew from this article is that David Thorpe is still the best
basketball analyst on this or any other planet.
(And no, I’m not being sarcastic.)
Follow me on Twitter @timallenonline
by TimAllen on Oct 14, 2011 11:14 AM CDT reply actions 1 recs
Doesn't this part already happen?
The NBA has a similar opportunity. Will sports fans in China, India and Brazil insist on NBA basketball on their televisions? Will they buy expensive official NBA merchandise?
There’s a reason Kevin Love went over to China early this summer, and a reason his last two shoe deals have been with Chinese shoe companies. Wasn’t B-easy over there too, when we heard the false rumors about his ankle? Kobe isn’t the only player who makes scads of money looking to that market for various off-court ventures. A lot of players have been going on promotional tours in East Asia as a way of working around the lockout, and to some extent at least they’d be building the NBA’s brand as a result of the lockout.
(I don’t know about official NBA merchandise, so much. In a country where entire fake Apple stores can be built, the holograms on your hat mean nothin’ much.)
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
its the ad revenue more than the merchandise
that really drives pro sports these days. DVRs made the old merchandise and ticket sales model obsolete. Nobody watches TV shows live anymore because we are all too busy and use DVRs to fast forward through the content. But people still watch sporting events live and it is one of the few things that guarantees an audience for the ads. That meant that sports game content became a HUGE money maker for the media companies.
It took a little while for the leagues to catch on but they did a few years back and make a killing via their TV contracts and it’s also why the big conferences in college football are expanding. Merchandise is small potatoes these days.
"My love for Jerry Kill knows no bounds." - Jeffrick
by TheEvilProfessor on Oct 14, 2011 1:14 PM CDT up reply actions
I usually dvr sporting events as well and tune into the games about 1/4 of the way in. For the Olympics I wait a couple of hours – it is much more enjoyable watching the events than watching the ads and story lines. I am going to hate the day when they put mandatory ads in the dvr time….
by Breaking Ankles on Oct 14, 2011 1:44 PM CDT up reply actions
Even if it's not where the money is, it would probably be fair to say that relative to a regular summer,
the NBA’s visibility as a brand in China was probably somewhat bigger this year because of the lockout. More than the usual number of well-known players were over there, it seemed like.
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
Foreign leagues might eventually catch up
But even under the best of circumstances it’ll take more than 10 years. There may be only a 10% gap in the top tier talent, but that last 10% is the hardest to overcome.
The NBA will always make more money which will suck up all the talent. It’s not England, France, and Germany where basketball is blowing up overseas, it’s countries with significantly less money.
China is on a path to catch up to the US economically, but it will take a while before their economy, domestic league development, and player development catch up.
And on the topic of comparing one league against another, nothing clears that up as much as head to head competition. I would love to see a FIBA world club competition pop up somehow.
Exactly
The best talent will be where the most money is.
The money will be where the most fans watch on TV and buy expensive tickets.
That place will continue to be the US for decades.
The article is interesting but not because the NBA is going to be eclipsed any time soon.
I wonder if there really is talent as good as the 4th and 5th best players on an NBA team overseas. I doubt it. It’s a provocative statement and fun to debate, but I don’t think that is factually true. It’s closer than many would think so it has that “a-ha!” appeal, but no, those players are not common oversseas. They exist, but they’re not common.
Not sure if I can agree with all this
4th or 5th best? Rubio was seemingly considered the 4th best player on his team and he’s going to be one of the most important players on our team. The Gasol brothers, Manu and TP, even Omri Casspi have shown that international guys are more than capable of carrying NBA teams, let alone breaking the top 4 or 5 players on any given team. Dallas wouldn’t have won anything had they not had Dirk. Dejuan Blair, of the career 17.4 PER and .139 WS/48, was just cut…by a Russian team! The notion that foreign players aren’t as good as US players is ridiculous.
I think US players, in general, are somewhat out of touch with where they really stand. Proof? It’s no longer a given that the US always wins any tournament that they play in. And please don’t give me the ‘but we have better athletes’ crap. That argument has been hashed out long ago, and for a refresher course on what it does and does not mean I need only give you two names – Gerald Green and Andre Iguodala. The massive difference between those two players on the international stage of competition encapsulates what most US players fail to grasp when they think that they are better than everyone else – it’s a team game in the end.
Lastly, China is going to define this century. Our time is over. The Chinese are the new middle class as the US doesn’t have one, or not much of one anymore. I work retail and I can tell that more and more the Chinese are coming here to buy stuff. Doesn’t that sound backwards to you? It’s only a matter of time before the Chinese economic impact on basketball will alter the way the NBA does business on a grand scale. Might take 10-20 years, but it will happen.
by Dr. Wolfenstein on Oct 14, 2011 11:12 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Decades?
The money will be where the most fans watch on TV and buy expensive tickets.
That place will continue to be the US for decades.
A couple of years ago, exchange rates were slanting in favor of the Euro so much that at least mid-level-exception type players like Josh Childress were in danger of signing overseas. There was speculation at the time that some European team might try to ink away a LeBron in a splashy move. (As it turned out, one such person bought a whole NBA team.)
I’m not sure we know anything ten years out.
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
I'd argue
that we don’t know anything ten seconds out.
But Pyrrho is my guide.
"Of what use is a philosopher who does not hurt anybody's feelings?" -Diogenes of Sinope
by Cynical Jason on Oct 15, 2011 3:33 PM CDT up reply actions
Russian statement
It’s entirely possible Blair didn’t fit in or play as well as they expected, but the case reminds me of a few cases in recent history when Russians have rejected Western assistance as a matter of pride. The fall of the Soviet Union into third-world status understandably hurt their egos, and rejecting an NBA player, Peace Corps volunteers, and assistance with the Kursk submarine is a little way of showing a little pride.
(Just as we hesitate to accept assistance with oil spills.)
Pride. It’s a double-edged trait.
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
The NBA needs to fix somethings. Not just the system issues, but the things on the court. Better and fair officiating needs to happen. I wish they would bring back some of the old rules like hand checking and the defensive 3 second call. The league is too guard oriented now. There are no legit centers in the league anymore. Too many great athletes, but not good basketball players. In Europe at least people showcase fundamentals, you don’t see that as much in the NBA as before. The dumbasses in the league..there will always be bad apples, but there seems to be more of these idiots in the league now. The NBA should always be the best. I don’t doubt that.
Sounds like you're asking for [drumroll]
government regulation of sports.
Which I would be totally for since the current privatized version is entirely about old men “owning” young men.
Seriously, does anyone think that government-certified referees and umpires would harm the integrity of pro sports?
Basketball is basketball. – Oscar Robertson
...wow
"We're not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence." - Chris Webber vs KAHN!
by caseycheesecake on Oct 16, 2011 9:28 PM CDT up reply actions
Again, in my old "competitive balance" thread we talked some about rules changes.
If the idea is to promote and protect stars and create a dramatic, dynamic league, how is the league doing right now? There weren’t less stars in the NBA back in the defensive-minded 1990s. There were more.
There’s a sort of “sniff check” fans do to decide whether a video game is play balanced from year to year. How well does the current NBA pass that check? If I played a game in which point guards dominated play so often, I’d say the NBA2k[#] people had things a little off.
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."
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